Changing landscapes in cycling media

by Matt de Neef

The internet has changed our lives in ways we never could have expected, mostly for the better. And as we all know, it’s also had a dramatic effect on the media, and more relevantly for this website, on cycling media.

In this article we look at the effects the internet, social media and the rise of PR teams in pro cycling have had on cycling journalism and the way we, as fans, interact with the sport and those within it.

The rise of PR in cycling

Fairfax cycling reporter Rupert Guinness has been covering the sport in Europe since 1987. Back then, getting access to riders for interviews was a simple process.

“It was a free-for-all pretty much. You lobbed up at races and it was up to you to approach people and talk. Now all the teams have at the least their media operations person but they also have a media operation.”

Brian Nygaard, Orica-GreenEDGE communications director and former general manager of the Leopard-Trek team has also noticed (and been part of) the growth of cycling PR.

“When I first started I think there were maybe three press officers, four maybe at best during the Tour, when I first saw it in 2001. Now … you have at least one person following a team, regardless of the team.”

One of the greatest effects of this growth is the amount and variety of content that cycling teams now produce in-house. Race previews, reviews, startlists, post-race quotes, news releases, interviews and video content are now produced by the majority of teams on the WorldTour and shared with the world via teams websites, via email and via social media. As Brian Nygaard told CyclingTips:

“[Social media has] changed a lot about how we can communicate — sometimes we can communicate more directly with the people that are interested in the sport. We’re not always confined to talking to people via the media. We have a media outlet ourselves.”

For fans of the sport it’s a great service — all the latest news and information about our favourite teams and riders are available instantly through our favourite online channels. And for journalists too, the extra information — whether that be quotes from riders, team lists or something else — is of great value, as Jane Aubrey, then editor of Cycling News Australia, and now chief communications officer at Drapac Cycling told us:

“I don’t think you’ll find any journalists complaining about extra information because as a journalist you’re taking in as much information as you possibly can to build your story.”

But as Rupert Guinness explained to us, there’s another way of looking at it — by publishing direct to the public, cycling media teams are doing away with an important link in the information chain.

“[As a journalist] you can pull information off some of those press releases but it’s already old information because it’s already been put out there [via social media]. It’s kind of pointless. They are actually not serving the media at all in that regard. It’s like cutting out the middle man, and we [journalists] are the middle man.”

But is cutting out the journalists a good thing?

Controlling the message

In the flow of information from sources — such as cycling teams — to the public, journalists and the media play a crucial intermediary role — one of reporting the facts with objectivity and balance. And with cycling’s dark past, just as importantly, to scrutinise the performances we see. As we saw with Lance Armstrong, the tireless efforts of journalists like Paul Kimmage and David Walsh were part of what brought him down – not the drug tests.

While there are similarities in the jobs done by media officers and journalists (sourcing information and making it available to a wider audience, for example) the goals in the two professions differ greatly. As Jane Aubrey told CyclingTips, before her switch to Drapac Cycling:

“If you are in PR you are certainly looking to put your best case forward for your team and if you’re not doing that you’re not doing your job.”

One concern is that by putting their team’s best case forward, media officers can be seen as ‘controling the message’ that’s making its way out into the world. When a cycling team is producing its own media, there’s no benefit to the team to publish a negative story — a story that a journalist might be interested in publishing if it was of public interest.

It’s an issue Brian Nygaard is acutely aware of.

“I think it’s important with the race reporting and the service we provide that it needs to be trustworthy — we can’t just cheerlead our way through the media stream.”

Managing bad messages

In a sport that’s suffered its fair share of negative press in recent years, it’s not rare for a cycling team to have to deal with a bad news story. If anything, the cycling media has become even more active in pursuing stories about doping (for better or worse), largely due to being duped by Lance Armstrong for so many years.

“I think the media generally has learnt and is putting into better practice the lessons it’s learned from the kerfuffle from years past”, Rupert Guinness told us. “I think the media … are cognisant of the need to do things differently and better.”

As Orica-GreenEDGE’s communications director, Brian Nygaard feels he has a responsibility to teach the riders how to deal with difficult questions, including ones about doping.

“There are several things that have happened over the years, a lot of troublesome times in cycling and it’s been important to teach the riders how best to deal with this and how they can’t just answer questions they’re comfortable with.”

We asked Brian about the advice he gave Orica-GreenEDGE riders around the time of Stuart O’Grady’s admission to using EPO before the 1998 Tour de France. Brian declined to comment, saying “I prefer keeping my comments about my work to general things and not delve into specifics”. We’ve been told by riders and staff on Orica-GreenEDGE, however, that Brian “is particularly good in a crisis”.

Prompting the media

If one of the main jobs of the cycling PR officer is to put the team’s best case forward, then a part of that job is facilitating the job of journalists — allowing journalists access to riders and team staff in order to tell stories about the team, and therefore attract media attention for the team (and, in turn, sponsors).

In some cases that can be as simple as teeing up interviews between journalists and riders (although, as Rupert Guinness would testify, this was simpler when PR teams didn’t exist in cycling). In other cases it can be producing content that prompts media outlets to write their own stories.

One example of this is the Orica-GreenEDGE Backstage Pass video produced by Dan Jones after the stage 11 individual time trial at this year’s Tour de France. Rather than focusing solely on the performance of the Orica-GreenEDGE riders, the piece was more of a profile piece on the team’s Canadian TT specialist, Svein Tuft and his unusual road into cycling. Here’s what Dan Jones had to say about the video.

“I’d known [Svein’s] story since we started and we just hadn’t run it because of the timing, and the timing was perfect then [during Le Tour]. And after that NBC and all the networks did proper features on him.

“I think it’s important from the team’s perspective to try and help the media with as many different angles as possible, especially if it’s a motivational story, or something that’ll make people read it and go ‘far out, that’s cool’.”

Quantity over quality and the need for speed

Unfortunately, there is plenty of professional cycling coverage that isn’t as inspiring, insightful or original as it might be, particularly when it comes to online publishing.

It’s no secret that the largest revenue stream for online media outlets is advertising — a business model that requires outlets to provide certain amounts of page views. Generally, the more content, the more page views. And the more page views, the more space to sell to advertisers.

The business model of online media can lead to a focus on quantity and speed over quality or, as Orica-GreenEDGE’s Brian Nygaard put it:

“It’s unfortunate that quality doesn’t really sell as much as it used to. Today, often, it’s more — with certain types of media — the essence of being fast more than the essence of being analytical or reflective.”

Rupert Guinness gave the following example of how this plays out in his job, which includes writing for Fairfax’s online pages.

“You may go to a press conference for example and it doesn’t sound like a lot but you’ve got to quickly file five paragraphs straight away. In that window of time you might miss the opportunity to interview someone that you actually want to speak to privately — it could be a very question of a story you’ve got to yourself.

“That might be the only opportunity but you miss it because you’re filing for online. So your more in-depth, considered scoop could be lost because you’re doing an online thing. It’s like juggling balls – and I can’t juggle.”

Rise of the press release

Coupled with the trend towards quantity over quality and the need for speed is the rise of the published press release. When faced with limited resources, limited time and the need for quick and easy content, there can be a real temptation to publish a press release ‘as is’, with little or no journalistic investigation to determine the accuracy or balance of the story being presented.

The result is that media outlets publish the exact stories PR teams want them to publish. In this way they often miss other sides to the story, important details or aspects of the story that the organisation creating the press release decided to leave out, for whatever reason.

It’s an issue we deal with here at CyclingTips every day. We want to cover the breaking stories and the big news items but simply don’t have the resources to do so. In that situation, a press release from a reputable organisation (Cycling Australia, for example, in the case of an NRS race) is a reasonable option, although not ideal.

We’ll often include press releases or wire copy in our Rocacorba Daily news digest but we always flag them as such (so there’s no confusion about where the news came from, and so we’re giving credit where it’s due) and try to link to another news source for a more rounded view, whenever possible. But it’s far from ideal.

Read “recyclingnews” at Inrng to learn more about how cycling news is collected.

Orica-GreenEDGE Backstage Pass

While there are those that aren’t thrilled by the rise of the PR industry in cycling and the way it has affected coverage of the sport, there are, as mentioned, no shortage of benefits to come from this development.

One of the most enjoyable additions to the scene is the insightful and entertaining video content being produced by cycling teams. While several teams have got in on the act over the past year or so — including Europcar and Omega Pharma-QuickStep — the pioneer in this space is Orica-GreenEDGE.

Dan Jones’s Backstage Pass videos began with the team in 2011 and were created to give fans a behind-the-scenes look at GreenEDGE and its entry into the sport. They’ve since gone on to attract international attention and serve a number of purposes for Orica-GreenEDGE, as Dan told us.

“[Backstage Pass] went from being something we started as ‘yeah, let’s do it for the fans’ and expanded to ‘now the sponsors are taking notice’. I think it’s even good internally with the staff because it’s good that all their hard work … people get to see it as well because other times it might just get swept up the rug.”

In addition to giving fans (and journalists) an insight into the behind-the-scenes workings of a professional cycling team, the Backstage Pass videos have been a great brand builder for Orica-GreenEDGE. They show the riders and team staff as a group of down-to-earth, fun-loving guys, who are ready to have a laugh at themselves and those around them.

This was no more apparent than in the team’s Call Me Maybe video (which has attracted more than 800,000 views on YouTube) and this year’s much anticipated follow-up, a video set to AC/DC’s You Shook Me All Night Long. (The video was taken down from YouTube a couple months after it was posted, following a request from AC/DC’s management, but you can see a republished version here).

The “OGE Rocks” video was broadcast on TV stations around the world during the Tour de France and received praise from fans, journalists and riders alike. Dan Jones told us of one particularly gratifying moment the day after the video was released.

“The next day I saw Cavendish ride past and I said “hey Cav” and he goes “F***in’ hell mate that was unbelievable that video – I was pissing myself laughing!”

Just the beginning

Ask almost any journalist about the future of the profession and, if they’re honest, they’ll tell you they don’t know. The internet, and to a lesser extent social media, have changed the way news is sourced, created, published and read and this is no less true when it comes to cycling journalism.

PR teams are now a fixture of the professional cycling scene and those teams are taking more control over creating and publishing their own content. As a result, the way we — as fans and journalists — interact with the sport and with those within it is constantly evolving, for better or worse. We look forward to seeing where things go from here.

As a fan of the sport, what’s your take on the rise of PR in professional cycling? Has it changed the way you interact with the sport? Is social media making journalism better? And what about the use of press releases — have you noticed that trend in recent years? Does it affect your appreciation for the media outlet?

The rise of the social media self publisher isn’t anything new. Whether it’s a brand, sport, blogger ;-) We live a culture where everyone wants to tell their own story without the in-between of the press.

As a guy in communications essentially it boils down to developing content creation teams who can create, publish and push the message they want, when they want.

It ain’t all bad propaganda – you get to see beyond the elite sports person and see what makes them tick which is a good thing which is what I love. To hear an elite sportsperson who is still passionate about their sport is great to read.

Habibi

Very interesting read. Thanks for posting.

Re “the pioneer in this space is Orica-GreenEDGE”…I disagree.
Cervelo Test Team were putting out quality videos many years ago with the excellent “Beyond the Peloton” series. Well worth a look for those that haven’t yet seen them.

Agreed. Also, Behind the Barriers has been pioneering CX coverage since before Orca-GreenEDGE.

Arfy

I think it’s not that journalism is on the way out, rather the journalistic job scope has changed. The ones that adapt to the change are the ones who will be successful, such as those who are working on the PR releases for cycling teams.

10 years ago I’d be picking up a copy of the local paper (The Age or Herald-Sun) to get my daily fix of news, including sport. The problem then was that with high circulation, editors could manipulate public opinion of an issue by publishing a story backing one side of an issue, or even not publishing anything on a topic at all. You didn’t get anything but horse-racing during Melbourne Cup week! At least with online media from all around the world, it makes it harder for self-interest groups to hide behind manipulated media.

Today with us, the public, wanting to know what’s happening when it’s happening, it’s hard to argue with the need for PR journalists, but there’s still scope for a knowledgeable independent journalist to critique statements and ensure honesty in the press releases. I’d hate to think that independent journalists are still betraying their honesty by trying to get close to cycling teams in the race be first to “break the news”.

http://www.cyclingTipsBlog.com cyclingTips

The rise of these independent journalists/bloggers is an interesting one. Someone like Inrng is a fine example of that. On the other hand, there are people with 15k followers on twitter who have been hugely influential who thrive on gossip and drama (there are plenty in cycling). Our BS filters need to be on high alert, but there’s certainly no shortage of information being put out there.

dcaspira

Matt, a meaty article – no doubt it goes to the core of CT biz model. My only comments here are; don’t get sucked in the status quo thinking on this one, don’t accept that advertising is your only way, you’re not alone & remember that pro teams are businesses as well. good luck :)

http://www.cyclingTipsBlog.com cyclingTips

It’s something we’re constantly racking our brains over @dcaspira. How to keep afloat without relying on advertising. Not that advertisers are a bad thing (they give is access to product, teams, riders, opportunities, etc). However, the zero user-fee of media on the internet is a horrible business model for the publisher and for the reader. It results in a poor user experience that relies on pageviews, and articles that are structured that way.
We’re trying to break that mould, but as costs keep rising, the more need for advertiser support. Unfortunately my gut feel is that a subscription model would not fly.
Someone once said to me, “if it’s free, then you are the product being sold”.

mattb

in a sport where equipment is of such high interest, I am happy for a site like this to have advertising. I will happily click on the link to the right to see what Conquest shorts are like – they might be overpriced rubbish, but they might be my next favourite brand / product. Otherwise there is no way I would have any brand awareness and we would all be riding the same brands and wearing team kit not being pushed to be better by the new brands in the market…

Geoff

I also don’t see a problem with CyclingTips using advertising as part of its funding model.
The problem with subscription models for Internet-based news media is that the average user obtains news from many sites – often aggregating news from a number of different sources. End users would not be prepared to enter into subscription agreements with all of those – the total cost would become too much. To warrant a subscription, you need to attach a business value to your content, such that clients are able to quantify the value added to them by having your content. In addition, your content needs to be unique enough that clients cannot source it elsewhere, or provided in a real-time manner which a client needs and cannot get elsewhere (think Reuters, Bloomberg etc.)
Australian newspapers are showing well how not to do subscription models – as The Age and co erect paywalls, users are going to overseas papers like The Guardian. When you start a subscription model, you need to be very careful that your readers cannot get the content elsewhere. This is where even publications like the Economist reserve their subscription model for content and analysis which is quite unique, and for which readers are prepared to pay.

Oakie

Cycling tips has always produced very objective, balanced product review articles, that haven’t shied away from pointed out where an item excels or has deficiencies – the question is, if the site is funded by (and reliant on) product advertising, would the reviews still be as unbiased?… Discuss.

Geoff

I don’t think what you are doing here is unique enough – if I want results and headlines I’ll look at Cycling News or Velonews; Pez Cycling for example has catchup summaries for the rest (there’s plenty of others)

On the other hand, your Climbing Cyclist site is brilliant, and unique as far as I know – maybe not so interesting if you’re outside Melbourne / Vic but maybe this could expand into other states?

mattb

I respectfully disagree about this site not being unique. I haven’t found another like it. I don’t view cyclingtips as a news site – I see it as a cycling information blog focussed on the riders interests, equipment, pro racing and the lifestyle of cycling.
If I want results I also look at cycling news, but this site is so much more than that, it feeds my love of cycling and being on the bike, while being informative at the same time, not just my need for race results and team news. You wouldn’t have gotten a story on the best rides in the world like the one we did a few weeks ago on other sites that I know of.
Before I read your comment I was thinking that I wonder if there is a version of this site focussed on the USA or UK (or another English language base) that I can see the world through their cycling aficionados eyes.

Matt de Neef

Thanks re: TCC Geoff. Much appreciated!

Steel

Good journalism needs to be funded somehow. Whether that be traditional ads and classifieds, web with clicks and banners or more recent movements such as crowd sourced funding.

The internet is great at diversifying the discussion and broadening the voices beyond just the usual loud mouth, arch conservatives at News. However, the risk is that we become complacent and expect it all to come for free.

Sporting organisations understand this and fill in gaps by providing their sanitised versions of events to you direct via twitter or media releases. Yeah it’s hot off the presses but it conditions you to believe that what they say is all true when we know behind it (hello Lance) there are important stories not being told.

Without good funding we don’t get to hear the stories behind the stories. So I say – make sure you get a Fairfax, Crikey, Guardian subscription (not News, they’re a pack of see you next tuesdays) and ensure we continue to have good journalism, not just PR and spin.

Faz

Good article. Being directly involved in the media for both a cycling body and in the past an NRL team, it’s a topic I read with great interest. There is much to talk about the changing media landscape and it’s one that is starting to move with some increased momentum, but also one which I still don’t believe anyone can really say what way it is heading. There are still so many different thoughts on what model of journalism is best in this digital era.

Rupert makes a number of great points and while I agree with his point that the teams are cutting out the middle man – the journalist – it’s a growing trend across all mainstream sports and more so from sports who cannot secure the column space in the papers or the papers online medium. With the digital age on us, we are seeing more and more teams/sports who could never dream of being on television exploit the powers of YouTube through dedicated channels and also live streaming their own events. $1500 buys you a handycam and with a simple device added to it you can be live streaming in just minutes with some spare change to boot.

As for the use of press releases, that has been something I’ve noticed grow more and more as the size of the newsroom shrinks smaller and smaller. In a past role of mine I would often walk around the office gloating that our news piece was verbatim the media release I sent. Why? Because I controlled the media on that issue and people would read what we as an organisation wanted them to read. And that was usually based on resources available in the newsroom at the time where they couldn’t allocate a body to follow up on the release but couldn’t not report it either.

For me, my preferred approach is for cycling teams (and this applies to any other sport too) is to mix both media and PR together but understand their differences while servicing both with adequate resources and intensity. The PR team can be pushing the company line in all the unusual and sometimes wacky things they do, but the media team need to be servicing the media.

Matt de Neef

Great insight Faz, thanks. And some great points. Your comment about getting media releases printed verbatim is spot on. I used to work for a university media office and it was celebrated their too. It happened reasonably often — once a week maybe? — normally only in the rural papers were the staff were/are required to pump out obscene amounts of copy per person per issue. I have no doubt they saw well-written press releases as a real time-saver. A win-win really.

Bigguy

I would like to see Rupert publish a new book, loosely titled “Cycling PR – What they don’t want you to hear”

Rider ‘A’…”Look I don’t know what happened today. Frankly I felt like shit. At one point one of the boys had to push me up the Cat 4 climb. We just didn’t do well today”

Team PR…..”Another magnificent days racing saw the team come together as a group for the final cat 4 climb. With rider x sitting 1.22 behind the race leader, the team consolidated their efforts blah blah. Rider ‘A’ commented “….and once we knew the time gap was decreasing, we sat up and rode the final climb as a group”.

Best seller.

Matt de Neef

Gold. I’d read that for sure.

Monsieur Pi Pi

Thank goodness the PR types haven’t got to everyone yet and cycling still has some personalities such as Cav and Wiggins and a heap of Europeans who still say what they think whether it be on Twitter or elsewhere. Compare this to the sanitised “non comments” that come out of cliche ridden AFL players where every interview is basically identical regardless of the subject. Long live language differences. Cancellara’s broken English tweets are one of the joys of life.

Faz

I disagree. The “PR types” are the ones who thrive on these characters, unfortunately the media types who drive the personalties out of the sport especially here in Aus with the major sporting codes. Athletes who stick their neck out being a personality are too often berated through the media for doing so, yet it’s the media who reports on the lack of characters these days. Cake and eat it??

zurp

I’ve been really enjoying what omega pharma has been doing, they’re videos are fun to watch usually and offer some interesting footage behind the scenes. It’s nothing super unique but they’re social media presence is entertaining.
Other than that info I (somewhat ashamedly) enjoy hearing about team gossip and tech info. I can usually turn to here or cyclingnews to get that. I can always count on you guys to bring something slightly different to the table which is why I still check this site daily. The Bike Lane is an amazing piece though sometimes I don’t have a lot of time to watch it all, and your interaction with the readers is encouraging.
I think the future of cyclo-journalism will just have to take a little bit more investigating to come up with something unique, or maybe more Secret Pro-type articles :)

jules

People want to hear about what’s really going on in the sport – what do wiggo and froomie say to each other, who’s doping (this is the story that doesn’t stop giving, sadly). Who won is only half of it, or less. PR media has a role in that, but only a limited one – part of their job is to conceal rather than report. I read CT cos it’s quality. I’ll check CN for race results, but it’s sanitised and generic (“how does this win compare with your previous ones?”) This site works because it’s run by people who are obviously passionate, for readers who are the same. That’s how to leverage social media limited- make people feel a part of it, rather than just readers or visitors.

TallyBee

Good yarn. Even better is the expression on Dave McKenize’s face in the header shot!

Matt de Neef

You get a sense from the photo how close together the journos were at that moment, but it was even tighter than it looks. He literally had to squash himself against the desk and his cameraman Ryan, the one on Dave’s left, had the lens of the camera mere inches from Sagan’s face. Without wanting to hijack this thread, here’s a piece I wrote looking behind the scenes of SBS’s TdF coverage: http://cyclingtips.com.au/2013/07/behind-the-scenes-of-sbss-tour-de-france-coverage/

resty refuerzo

Cycling isn’t pretty much covered in the Philippines except for one or two major tours. Thus the internet is a blessing for cycling-news starved local cyclists.

Paolo

Just something to think about…..if i check out a watch forum and then go to a newspaper website i’ll get adds from Rolex and Jaeger-LeCoultre, if i go to CT i always get cycling adds….long live the cookie and the algorithm.

jules

You won’t be saying that when you start getting ads for porn ;)

velocite

Subscriptions only work if you have something valuable and exclusive to offer, like high quality share trading information – if you believe in that sort of thing. Optional subscriptions or variations like RBR’s ‘premium member’ idea give rise to repetitive begging letters which are not a good look. CT should have no misgivings about the advertising model, the only proviso in my opinion is that the ads need to be on topic and no snake oil, lose belly fat in 5′ a week’ type rubbish.

Lots of good things about this site, including, spectacularly, The Bike Lane. But obviously, in general, it’s the informed interpretation and commentary on events that we like, plus of course bootstrap items, like ‘Bikes of the Bunch’ and actual tips. But speaking of commentary, readers comments must be a little scary to a publisher. The comments on this site are a major plus, while on some sites comments have been hijacked by aliens from some squalid planet. Is that why Velonews canned them? I read New Matilda for political commentary, but after reading some comments I wonder what I’m doing here with these people.

Apologies if this was an uncalled for ramble.

Matt de Neef

Not uncalled for at all; very interesting in fact. I must agree with you about the comments here at CT: generally speaking the tone is far more positive, constructive and engaged than I’ve experienced elsewhere. Thanks everyone!